Sharing Her Crime: A Novel. May Agnes Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ after that I'm never going to believe there's anything but ingratitude in this world," said Gipsy, with an emphasis on the "this" which seemed to denote she had met with gratitude in another.

      But tears filled the gentle eyes of Celeste, as she looked up, and said:

      "Oh, I hope you're not angry with me. I didn't mean to offend you, I'm sure. I'm so sorry."

      "Oh, it's no matter. Nobody minds what they say to me. I'm used to it. But it's so funny you should be afraid. Why, I never was afraid in my life."

      "That's true enough, anyway," said Archie, with an assenting nod.

      "There's Guardy now. Oh! won't he be awful when I get home – but laws! who cares! I'll pay him off for it, if he makes a fuss. I sha'n't be in his debt long, that's one comfort."

      "Do you remember how dolefully Jupiter looked as he came in for you, all dripping wet; and when you told him you wouldn't go, he – " and overcome by the ludicrous recollection, Master Archie again fell back in a paroxysm of laughter.

      "What a fellow you are to laugh, Archie!" remarked Gipsy. "You astonish me, I declare. Do you laugh much, Celeste?"

      "No, not much."

      "That's right – I don't laugh much either – I'm too dignified, you know; but somehow I make other people laugh. There's Archie now, for everlasting laughing; but Minnette – do you know I never saw her laugh yet – that is, really laugh. She smiles sometimes; not a pleasant smile either, but a scornful smile like. I say, Minnette," she added, raising her voice, "what is the reason you never laugh?"

      "None of your business," rudely replied Minnette.

      "The Lord never intended her face for a smiling one," said Miss Hagar, breaking in, suddenly. "And you, you poor little wild eaglet, who, a moment ago, boasted you had never wept, you shall yet shed tears of blood. The bird has its eyes put out with red-hot iron before it can be made to sing sweetly; and so you, too, poor bird, must be blinded, even though you should flutter and beat yourself to death, trying to break through the bars of your cage."

      "Humph! I'd like to see them trying to put my eyes out," said Gipsy. "I guess I'd make them sing, and on the wrong side of their mouths, too – at least, I think I should!"

      "Oh, Miss Hagar, tell us our fortunes – you haven't done so this long time," exclaimed Archie, jumping up. "Here is Gipsy wants to know hers, and Celeste's, too; and as for me, I know the future must have something splendid in store for so clever a fellow, and I'm anxious to know it beforehand."

      "Don't be too anxious," said Miss Hagar, fixing her gloomy eyes prophetically on his eager, happy face; "troubles are soon enough when they come, without wishing to forestall them."

      "Why, Miss Hagar, you don't mean to say I'm to have troubles?" cried Archie, laughing. "If they do come, I'll laugh in their face, and cry, 'Never surrender.' I don't believe, though, my troubles will be very heavy."

      "Yes, the heaviest troubles that man can ever know shall be thine," said the oracle, in her deep, gloomy voice. "The day will come when despair, instead of laughter, will fill your beaming eyes; when the smile shall have left your lip, and the hue of health will give place to the dusky glow of the grave. Yes, the day will come when the wrong you may not quell shall cling to you like a garment of flame, crushing and overwhelming you and all you love, in its fiery, burning shame. The day will come when one for whom you would give your life shall desert you for your deadliest enemy, and leave you to despair and woe. Such is the fate I have read in the stars for you."

      "La! Archie, what a nice time you're going to have," said the incorrigible Gipsy, breaking the impressive silence that followed the sibyl's words – "when all that comes to pass! It will be as good as a play to you."

      "Miss Hagar must have sat up all last night getting that pretty speech by heart," said Minnette, fixing her mocking black eyes on the face of the spinster. "How well she repeated it! She'd make her fortune on the stage as a tragedy queen."

      "Scoffer!" said the sibyl, turning her prophetic eyes on the deriding face of the speaker, while her face darkened, and her stern mouth grew sterner still. "One day that iron heart of thine shall melt; that heart, which, as yet, is sealed with granite, shall feel every fiber drawn out by the roots, to be cast at your feet quivering and bleeding, unvalued and uncared for. Come hither, and let me read your future in your eyes."

      "No, no!" said Minnette, shaking back, scornfully, her glossy black hair. "Prate your old prophecies to the fools who believe you. I'll not be among the number."

      "Unbeliever, I heed it not!" said Miss Hagar as she rose slowly to her feet; and the light of inspiration gathered in her eyes of gray, as, swaying to and fro, she chanted, in a wild, dirge-like tone:

      "Beware! beware! for the time will come —

      A blighted heart, a ruined home.

      In the dim future I foresee

      A fate far worse than death for thee."

      Her eyes were still riveted on the deriding face and bold, bright eyes, that, in spite of all their boldness, quailed before her steady gaze.

      "Good-gracious, Miss Hagar, if you haven't nearly frightened this little atomy into fits!" said Gipsy. "I declare, of all the little cowards ever was, she's the greatest! Now, if I thought it wouldn't scare the life out of her, I'd have my fortune told. If everybody else is going to have such pretty things happen to them, I don't see why I shouldn't, too."

      "Come here, then, and let me read thy fate," said Miss Hagar. "The spirit is upon me to-night, and it may never come more."

      "All right. Archie, stop grinning and 'tend this little scary thing. Now, go ahead, Miss Hagar."

      The seeress looked down solemnly into the dark, piquant little face upturned so gravely to her own; into the wicked brown eyes, twinkling and glittering with such insufferable mischief and mirth; and, bending her tall body down, she again chanted, in her dreary tone:

      "Thou wast doomed from thy birth, oh, ill-fated child;

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